Welch Promotes Program To Help Veterans Run Small Businesses

Congressman Peter Welch stands with Tim and Michelle McCollum and Chris Herriman of Vermont's Small Business Development Center. Welch is touting a program aimed at helping National Guard Veterans create and maintain businesses.

Congressman
Peter Welch hopes a partnership that's been helping Vermont National Guard
members with their small business needs can become a model for the nation.

It's hard enough to start or run a small business. But to do it while you're
deployed in the military can be truly daunting.

Back
in 2008, Vermont's Small Business Development Center won a $300,000 grant to work directly with the Vermont National Guard to help veterans
with their small business needs.

Because
of the program's success, Welch is working to expand the partnership
nationwide.

"The biggest
challenge we have is to help our veterans get back into the community," Welch said. "They
have very high unemployment rates. It's a tough economy. Practical things we
can do, we should do."

Those things include having an adviser who understands the demands of both the
military and a small business. That's where Chris Herriman comes in. She provides
free business counseling to veterans as part of Vermont's Small Business Development Center.

As
the wife of National Guard soldier and a small business owner, she says she
understands better than most the business challenges facing veterans.

Michele
McCollum agrees. She and her husband Tim
worked with Herriman while Tim was still deployed in Afghanistan to start a new property
management business in Killington.

"The help and the guidance that was provided
to us through the SPCD was phenomenal," McCollum said. "Any time that I felt like I can't do
this anymore, I called Chris Herriman and she lifted me up and she made me
believe that we can move forward and we can be a success.

The cooperative program has helped veterans and their families start more than
50 businesses in Vermont, in addition to helping
families who already own their own businesses manage it while the soldiers are
away.

Small
business adviser Chris Herriman says the McCollums are a great example of
what's possible. Their new business is already expanding.